Moray, along the Speyside coast, has good agricultural land alongside its famous whisky-distilling heritage, and sits close enough to the Highland pony breeding country further west and south to benefit from that culture without being quite as remote. The region has a strong Highland Games tradition too, and native ponies have long had a place in that world, from ceremonial roles to general working use.
Compared with the more mountainous parts of the Highlands, Moray's coastal and river-valley land around Elgin and Forres is gentler and easier to farm, which tends to mean better-grown ponies alongside the harder hill-bred type from further inland. It is a manageable size for viewings compared with sprawling Highland or Aberdeenshire, with decent road links along the coast making a day of several viewings genuinely realistic.